Reflecting on 2020
2020 has been a challenging year marked with unprecedented events and disruption to all our work and home lives. The coronavirus pandemic and economic distress have tested all of us in different ways.
As the year comes to a close, I wanted to reflect on some of the accomplishments our team at CALCAP has achieved.
When the pandemic hit in March, the company moved into a complete defensive mode with 3 primary goals:
- Protect the health and safety of our employees and residents
- Preserve investor capital
- Maintain business continuity with all employees working remotely
We quickly moved to shut down all common areas at our apartment communities and began to hyper focus on rent collections. We put all acquisitions on hold, and our lending business tightened credit guidelines and shifted to a loss mitigation focus.
In the second half of the year, we began to cautiously play offense again as the markets and economy stabilized and provided us with more clarity.
CALCAP Asset Management began actively pursuing opportunities and purchased a 127-unit deal in Phoenix. We were also able to sell two assets this year with average annual returns to investors of 28% and 42% respectively!
CALCAP Lending steadily increased production, developed new loan products and sourced additional take-out investors. We also secured a new $20mm funding facility.
CALCAP Properties has averaged over 96% rent collections through the pandemic while maintaining record occupancy of over 97%. At the same time, CCP added 860 new fee managed units to our portfolio.
The CALCAP Income Fund I maintained monthly investor payouts throughout the pandemic and also created a REIT structure to provide more tax advantaged income to investors.
Finally, we created a new synergistic business called CALCAP Strategic Opportunities which will focus on providing $1-7mm Preferred Equity investments in workforce multifamily housing.
And most importantly, we were able to retain about 99% of our employees!
I cannot say enough about the incredible commitment and tenacity our team has shown this year. We are truly grateful to our employees, investors, business partners and friends. Although we are not “out of the woods” yet, we believe that housing will continue to be a great investment long term and are optimistic for what 2021 may bring!
